


and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now

by rushes



Series: cape cod [2]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Cape Cod, M/M, ep 6, please tell me yabbies are in fact crayfish bc i was talking about yabbies, why is it impossible to not throw in an eiji pout?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-30
Updated: 2018-11-30
Packaged: 2019-09-02 19:21:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16793188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rushes/pseuds/rushes
Summary: When the stars all blink open against the sky and the water of the pond turns ink-like, shimmering, Griff passes the flashlight to Ash and guides him to the edge.“You ready?” Griff asks.Crouching at the perimeter, the water is black and alien, still moving. Like if Ash brought his fingers too close it’d pull him in and swallow him.“Turn on the flashlight and shine it onto the pond, close to us.”[cape cod, now and then]





	and every pond, no matter what its name is, is nameless now

**Author's Note:**

> kind of a companion to [this](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16593047), though it's definitely not necessary to read.

When Ash is a kid he always has to crane his neck up to look at Griff, smiling, smelling of pine needles, shoulders broad as the sun. His laugh is bigger still, shakes his whole body like it’s trying to break out of him. There’s something of Dad in his face in those moments, the Dad from the photo album at the back of the cabinet of wine glasses Ash isn’t supposed to touch. But then not quite, still something different to the shape of their eyes. Or maybe it’s just the lack of beard. Anyway, it’s dumb that Ash doesn’t get to touch the wine glasses. And he wouldn’t be snooping if every cupboard and drawer wasn’t filled with stuff it isn’t meant to be full of in the first place. 

He learns to ride a bike, _no training wheels_ , in two days. He’s six (and a half) and he can’t help but marvel at the process. One second he’s shaky on the ground, Griff’s hands fluttering around him, and the next he’s flying, like there was never anything to it. There’s a magic there, some sort of disappearing act. In two weeks, Griff deems him ready and they head down to a proper trail. 

“You’re a fast learner, huh?” Griff says.

Ash puffs his chest out, grinning. He climbs on his bike and speeds off, that’s answer enough.

Three minutes in, a seagull crosses the sky. It leaves Ash with an idea. “Hey, Griff! No hands! No hands!”

Six bandaids later and a defeated walk with their bicycles back the way they came, Griff sits across from him, framed by the peeling red vinyl of a diner booth.

“Griff?”

“Yeah, Kid?”

Ash kicks his feet together, draws a circle into the ketchup on his plate with a fry. “What do you call the people who know everything about bugs? Like the guy I told you about who came in for Mrs. Freund’s class.”

“Hmmm…” Griff frowns, sucks down the last of the milkshake Ash couldn’t finish. “I’m not actually sure. Uh, bug guys?” 

“Bug…guys?” Ash scrunches his nose. He loves it when Griff knows things. Sometimes he loves it more when Griff doesn’t know things.

Griff smiles then, it’s the beginnings of his great laugh. And inexplicably, “bug guy” becomes the funniest thing in the world to Ash.

“Bug guy!” He repeats, revelling in the combination of words, barely able to speak them through the laughter bubbling out of him.

~

It’s no different, the way Jennifer seems to rush down the dirt path towards Ash. She looks older, fine lines around her eyes, creases in her forehead that make her seem tired, but her voice is exactly as Ash remembers it. That soft way about her, how she can’t help but say his name like it’s something unfortunate, that it should be looked after.

It had stung a bit, when she hadn’t immediately recognised him. Ten years. How many worlds away must he look now? But then it still comes easy, to be gentle, watching her try to balance the oil lamp on a basket of food. That must count for something.

Ash hadn’t known his mother’s name until he was six and Griff was pointing at the only photograph Ash ever managed to find of her: “Marian,” he’d said, voice like he’d fumbled and was uncovering something forgotten. Until that point, Ash had known her through his father as The Bitch, The Slut, The Homewrecker. He hadn’t known the specifics of the words, but it was a natural thing to recoil whenever he was told, _you look just like her_.

He doesn’t, really. Just the colouring.

Now, like so many times then, he wonders what the old bastard did to deserve Jennifer. But then now, just like then, there’s also a knee jerk coil of guilt, the flash of thought that his father would probably be dead otherwise. When Ash was younger, there’d be the image sometimes, unbidden, of a casket, and he’d put his hands together and say “sorry” again and again to rear the thought back. He doesn’t pray now, but he does still redirect, wonders why Jennifer stays to puzzle the pieces of Jim together.

~

Eiji comes to him armed with a bag of cookies, his pants rolled up at the hem, holding his shoes by his free hand. He stretches, drops the bag in Ash’s lap and then folds down to sit besides Ash on the sand, hugging his knees to his chest when the breeze blows past, unassumingly cold.

“I know you skipped breakfast and lunch.” Eiji points at the bag, frowning.

There’s a determination to how casually he plants himself there, to not ask Ash if he may or may not sit, that makes Ash want to laugh in spite of himself. But he doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t ask Eiji to leave. Now that he’s here it’s nice not to be alone.

“I think I missed being so close to the ocean,” Eiji says, when Ash doesn’t speak. He blows his breath out, closes his eyes and then opens them, shifting to look at Ash, half his face tucked against his arm. 

So dark, so grounded. It’s the absolute opposite to the water in front of them, the restless waves of something displaced, searching. Ash could just sit, he thinks, he could just sit there and look at Eiji’s eyes.

“What is it?” The smile is there, in Eiji’s voice, even if Ash can’t see it right now.

And Ash remembers the solid feel of Eiji’s back against his chest when he’d reached around to adjust his fingers on the handle of a gun. Stepping back, the shape of Eiji lingering against his ribcage and the drum of his heartbeat. The sound seeming to amplify the loss, reaching for something in the empty space in front of Ash. Then the bullet, completely off target, and Eiji’s open mouth, the exhilaration in his wide eyes. _A novelty._

 _He really doesn’t get it,_ Ash thinks. _Thank God._

“Are you from the coast?”

Eiji hums in the affirmative. “Eat,” he says, lifting his chin from the cover of his arm to gesture towards the cookies before continuing. “Yes. Though not as close to the beach as you are. And my city still feels different to this. They say–” Eiji smiles. “In October, all the gods leave their posts to gather there.”

“What, why? For a break?”

Eiji shakes his head, laughing. “ _No._ To discuss...God things.”

“Yeah, sure. That’s what they’d want you to believe.”

“No, Ash. They meet at a shrine – the oldest one in Japan, actually. And they talk about...mmm...climate, the harvest. Connections?” Eiji frowns, his mouth twisting in thought. And then it’s like a cartoon lightbulb moment. “Matchmaking.”

Ash has to hold himself back from laughing at Eiji’s expression. “Matchmaking, huh? How the fuck did you end up here, then?” But how he says it, how he can’t help the slow way he blinks, one side of his mouth pulling up. He’s not sure if he’s being combative or if he’s flirting, doesn’t know if he’s issuing a plea, a dare or a warning.

Eiji does not fluster. Just surveys Ash for a long moment, unimpressed, before he sighs and turns his head to look at the water. “Eat, please,” he says, after a moment.

Ash is trying to figure out what it all could possibly mean when Eiji drops his arm from around his knee, scooting his hand over to Ash’s, until their pinkies are almost touching. Ash looks up, finding Eiji peering at him from the side and then Ash does laugh. There’s something about this that feels very middle school. Or at least what he imagines it’s meant to be like. There’s a tiny part of him that’s curious, so he holds Eiji’s stare, doesn’t move his hand away.

He exhales and then Eiji is touching him, flipping his hand over so his knuckles touch the sand. A moment, Eiji’s fingers at the base of his wrist, and then there’s just his index finger tracing light over Ash’s palm.

Ash, swallows thickly. He doesn’t know what to do with this, this meandering, aimless touch. Eiji does not move past his wrist, nor the first joints of Ash’s fingers.

“You a palmist?” He says, because when he’s quiet, all he can hear is his own heartbeat.

“Mm.” Eiji nods, turning his head again to face Ash. “Yes, actually.” He lifts Ash’s hand then, grasp loose enough that Ash could pull straight out of it, then releases. Ash holds his arm up, lets Eiji poke at the lines of his palm. “Heart, Head, Fate, Life. Oh, what is this? It tells me of a stubborn ox that won’t eat.”

“ _What?_ ” It’s silly enough that it startles more laughter out of Ash. He takes Eiji’s hand, tugging it towards his face to survey. “Oh look, this fork here. You’ll encounter an ox headbutting a tiny man. 

“Tiny man?!” Eiji blinks at Ash, aghast. “No respect for your elders!” he sputters, then folds his fingers to flick Ash’s wrist.

“What do you mean? I don’t know who the tiny man is,” Ash says, all innocence.

He takes pity when Eiji huffs, pouting. So he opens the bag of cookies, making a show of taking one out, chewing and swallowing, before holding his hands out. “There, I ate.”

“A few more,” Eiji says, shaking his head. He reaches out to take one for himself but as soon as it’s in his mouth his whole face scrunches. “How do Americans stand things this sweet?”

Ash shrugs, resists the sudden urge to poke at Eiji’s nose, and dips his hand back into the bag.

A while, and then Eiji speaks, face hidden behind his arms again, but Ash can still hear the smile. “When I was a child, I thought the heart of the universe was at the bottom of the ocean. That it was pulsing, and that is why you could hear the tide when you held a seashell to your ear.” 

“But it’s not the tide. It’s the environment, or bloodflow or something,” Ash says.

Eiji laughs. His eyes look impossibly kind. “Right? So it is something, something more, that it all sounds like the tide, then.”

~

It’s bordering dusk, the breeze persistent, when Griff stops Ash with two hands on his shoulders and whispers, triumphantly, “riiiiiiight here.”

“Where?” Ash asks.

“Crocker pond. You ready to catch some crayfish, Kiddo?”

Ash gasps. “Wait, with the claws?”

“Yes, with the _pincers_.” Griff is laughing. “Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you if you listen to me.”

Ash crosses his arms over his chest, he was _not_ worrying, and moves ahead of Griff, towards the opening in the pitch pines. He’s trying not to think of the word “if”. The last of the sun skitters over the surface of the pond, like the water is trying to shield its depths from the light.

Griff reaches him, a flashlight hanging around his neck and a net in hand. He whistles low at the sight of the pond, grinning.

“Pretty, isn’t it?”

Ash nods, because it is.

“There’s a poem,” Griff starts, and Ash makes a show of rolling his eyes because there’s _always_ a poem. Griff chuckles, ruffles his hair. “Come on, it’s a good one.”

Ash gives an affected sigh, decides to indulge Griff. “About Crayfish?”

“About a pond,” Griff says, shaking his head. He clears his throat. “At Blackwater Pond, the tossed waters have settled after a night of rain. I dip my cupped hands, I drink a long time. It tastes–”

Ash is listening, because he always does when Griff starts. He takes a deep breath in, looks from his hands to the water. If there’s crayfish in there, is it really safe to stick his hands in and drink the water?

Griff must notice him, because he smiles around the next lines. “Like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold into my body, waking the bones. I hear them deep inside me, whispering, oh what is this beautiful thing that just happened?”

“What _did_ happen?” Ash asks, as soon as Griff has finished.

“How about you tell me when we’re done here?”

“It’s not even the same pond, dummy!”

“Who you calling ‘dummy’, dummy?” Griff brandishes the net at him, and Ash squeals, laughing loud and bright as he dodges.

“It’s a pond in Provincetown,” Griff says. “Auntie May loves that poem.”

Ash, eyes on the net, shakes his head. “That pond sounds much cooler than this pond.”

Griff shrugs. “Well, she did move for love. And Mary Ol—”

Ash gasps, swinging an arm up. “The dog lady! The lady with the dogs!”

“Yes…” Griff scratches at his head. “I guess...Yeah, the lady with the dogs, Ash.”

Ash rolls his eyes, waving his hands in front of him as he speaks. “Well, of course she was in love! She had dogs. If we had dogs I’d probably be able to say cool stuff about this pond, too.” Ash waggles his eyebrows. “Griff, can we get a dog?”

A long-suffering sigh. Griff turns the net around so the stick side faces Ash, and taps it against the top of his head before he can run. “If you pick up a crayfish by the end of today, I’ll consider it.”

When the stars all blink open against the sky and the water of the pond turns ink-like, shimmering, Griff passes the flashlight to Ash and guides him to the edge.

“You ready?” Griff asks.

Crouching at the perimeter, the water is black and alien, still moving. Like if Ash brought his fingers too close it’d pull him in and swallow him.

“Turn on the flashlight and shine it onto the pond, close to us.”

Ash gasps. In the yellow light of the torch, in the shallow water, countless crayfish scuttle, swim, bump into each other, flicking out backwards, away. They’re different sizes, some smaller than others. All fast.

“They come out like this at night,” Griff whispers.

Ash is leaning forward, torch still poised over the pond as he brings his face closer. “Pincers!” The word comes out breathless, awed.

“Careful,” Griff says. “They’ll get your nose.”

Ash scoffs, pulls himself back a little nonetheless. He tries to find formations of them, but it’s all chaos. How many conversations crossing over each other in the water?

Griff pulls the net in. Ash rocks back on his heels and pushes himself up, running over to shine the torch into the net, both of them peering over.

“Two!” They say, in unison.

“Okay,” Griff starts, reaching in. “Ash, be calm and pick him up from behind his pincers.” A second later and Griff is holding one crayfish up. It’s angry, claws moving, but unable to snap at Griff. He lets it back in the water, then. “Okay, Ash. Careful. But not slow, they’re quick.”

Ash, heart in his throat, lowers his hand midway and then goes for it. He feels the coolness of the shell, somehow both more solid and more delicate than he’d have thought, and pulls the crayfish up.

“Oh!” He says, just as Griff points.

“Eggs,” Griff says. 

And sure enough, there’s too many to count tucked under the crayfish’s curved tail.

Gently, Ash releases the crayfish back into the pond. She darts through the water, all tension gone the instant the ripples settle over her. Ash exhales. He hadn’t realised he was holding his breath.

~

“What are you thinking about?” Eiji asks.

They’ve walked back up the hill, but Ash has stopped, another long look towards the ocean. The sun is just starting to set. “Skip,” he says, catching himself off guard with the easy honesty. “He came to us so young, y’know. I...somehow—” His chest is twisting but he’s smiling. “It only came up that I was from here once. But somehow, he got it in his head that I was talking about Coney Island.” Ash laughs now, can’t stop the tight, painful sensation of being wrung. But he’s tired, and it’s funny. “Much later, after he figured it all out, he told me that he’d dreamed it once and then believed I lived in the top cart of the Wonder Wheel.”

Eiji, Eiji and his big, round eyes, brows drawing up. He laughs as well. “Surely there are warmer spots that offer more shelter than that…and are easier to get to than the top cart.”

“I know!” Ash says, smiling, switching his weight to the other foot. “He must have really taken me for a dumbass, huh?” 

He misses Skip, can imagine him, so clearly, chiding them for talking about him like a kid. But imagining does nothing for any of them, it just makes Ash guilty. Guilt is a privilege of the living, he knows. And Skip was a kid. And Skip is still dead.

But still—

He never saw them but how many times has he pictured the bones in the basement?

“I can understand it. Why your gods would gather close to the ocean,” Ash says. 

And Griffin had shoulders broad as the sun, used to hold his arms open to Ash. All the time.

“Ash?”

He’s turning, he’s looking at Eiji. He doesn’t know what he needs but he hates himself a little, for not being able to stop himself from searching Eiji’s eyes for whatever it is.

Slowly, Eiji reaches up, tucks a strand of hair behind Ash’s ears. And it’s not like last night, not just happenstance in the dark. Ash closes his eyes and Eiji’s hand moves to cup his cheek, thumb resting behind his ear. When he opens his eyes, exhaling, his breath is ragged. He’s confused and his heart aches, and truth be told, his shoulder has been giving him strife every time he moves but God, still, in spite of it all, there’s the urge. The urge to lean down, bump his mouth against Eiji’s. Clumsy, just to be close, for some of the turbulence to knock its way out of him.

He doesn’t do it. But Eiji shifts toward him. He takes two steps forward and then folds his arms around Ash, one hand at the back of his head, the other at the small of his back, his chin coming to rest on Ash’s shoulder.

 _It’s okay_. This town is a ghost, and they’ll leave this here. Ash inhales the scent of clean cotton, then slumps into the warmth, eyes closing.

~

He barely hears Griff’s warning, does not have time to register the bike veering sideways, the shape of the rock, but then he really is flying. He screams, probably. All he knows is that suddenly he’s on the grass to the side of the trail, and the shock of the impact has stolen his breath. It takes seconds for Griff to reach him, voice strangled, eyes wide. But to Ash, it feels like the world freezes between landing and the moment Griff enters his line of sight. In the gaping strip between the horizontal rails of the fence, then behind the tall reeds, the water snakes out a winding path through the salt marsh and beyond. The stench in the air is briny and sulphurous. It should be repulsive but it’s thick enough that it feels alive, a pulsing thing that seems to kickstart Ash’s lungs, curious. When Ash looks up, there’s a wasp, perched on the railing. At first, fear tightens his ribcage, but then the wasp makes no move for him, the outline of its wings entirely still. As he stares, he imagines it’s looking right back at him.

 _Is it because you’re scared or because you’re not scared?_ He wonders. 

But then Griffin is there, his hands frantic before they actually meet Ash and become impossibly gentle. His eyes are searching and when Ash looks into them, what comes out is simply, “ow.”

“ _Ash._ ” Griff sounds terrified, but then he exhales and the way he sounds just makes Ash’s eyes well up. “What were you thinking?!”

Griff is helping him up, sighing. Ash’s hands, elbows and knees are all scraped, bike unscathed. Ash sniffs, and that’s what makes him really want to cry. He’s too big for tears. He manages to swallow the urge when Griff tugs on his ear, chiding but too light to shock, and runs his hand soft over Ash’s head. When Griff lifts his hand, the absence of touch is momentary, the movement back to Ash calm. Gently, he pats Ash’s back. 

~

Every year  
everything  
I have ever learned

in my lifetime  
leads back to this: the fires  
and the black river of loss  
whose other side

is salvation,  
whose meaning  
none of us will ever know.  
To live in this world

you must be able  
to do three things:  
to love what is mortal;  
to hold it

against your bones knowing  
your own life depends on it;  
and, when the time comes to let it go,  
to let it go.

**Author's Note:**

> title and ending poem are both from "In Blackwater Woods", and the poem Griffin recites is from "At Blackwater Pond", both by Mary Oliver! :^)


End file.
